There are often contradicting demands between the delivery of low energy housing and creating a sustainable attractive urban environment that meets the needs of a twenty-first century lifestyle. This proposal aims to deliver on both counts.

This house is L-shaped in plan, with family living space at ground floor within a modern open masonry interior. Full height glazing at the ends of the building overlook the housing and the street.

Above on the upper floors there are bedrooms enclosed within timber frame and aluminium cladding. The house rises to three storeys with a two-storey element above a car port. This arrangement allows in-curtilage car parking within the building footprint and a habitable room to the frontage providing passive surveillance of the street. It gives direct but private access between the street and the rear garden.

The design maximises the environmental potential of the house. All bedrooms except one face south and benefit from controlled solar gain and the roof slope is at the optimum pitch and orientation for solar hot water and photovoltaic panels. The roof slope also directs rainwater to a collection point at the foot of the slope where it is harvested. A light well over the stair at the peak of the slope creates a stack effect, drawing air through the house.

All of these features and more give the house a rating of level 4 of the Code for Sustainable Homes. An increase in specification to some elements of the fabric and provision of a community combined heat and power plant would push the rating up to level 5.

The house design complies with the relevant Lifetime Homes requirements and can be easily extended at ground floor in a single storey extension or on the second floor by building upwards.

Within a community, the house can be developed in a terraced perimeter block format with street frontage and private rear gardens. It could be developed at a medium density of around 35 homes per hectare, which could be increased through the provision of some smaller houses and flats to create a mixed community. The streets allow for some on-street visitor parking but most car parking provision is in curtilage with the car port.

The house includes a number of systems that would benefit from central computerised management, including: heating, ventilation, heat recovery and solar gain; lighting levels; audio visual technology; and internet and intranet.

© British Homes Awards |  Site design: LW design